1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to a technology for controlling execution of jobs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent No. 3573466, for example, discloses a job control technology where a client sends job data of a print job to a server, and the server generates print data and sends the print data to an image processing apparatus to execute the print job. The disclosed technology eliminates the need to include software (e.g., a printer driver) for generating print data in a client and thereby makes it possible to simplify software management and save storage resources.
However, with the related-art job control technology, the user needs to specify an apparatus or device where a job is to be executed. Here, for example, the format of print data (or execution data) of a print job varies depending on an “executing” image processing apparatus where the print job is to be executed. Accordingly, the server needs to generate execution data that the executing image processing apparatus can process. For this reason, the client sends information indicating an executing image processing apparatus specified by the user to the server, and the server identifies the executing image processing apparatus based on the information and generates data that the executing image processing apparatus can process.
Thus, with the related-art job control technology, the user needs to take the trouble of specifying an “executing” apparatus or device each time that the user requests execution of a job. To obviate this problem, it may be possible to use a fixed or predetermined image processing apparatus to execute jobs. In this case, however, since the same image processing apparatus is used for all jobs requested by the user, the jobs may not be processed properly.
For the above reasons, it is preferable to dynamically and automatically determine an executing apparatus or device that is suitable to execute a requested job.